Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
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February 19, 1999, FRIDAY, Late
Sports Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. 53
LENGTH: 468 words
HEADLINE:
EPA plan could take bite out of SUV fever
BYLINE: BY
DAN JEDLICKA
BODY:
Looks like the price is going up
on America's love affair with sport-utility vehicles.
The Environmental
Protection Agency, which is expected to propose tough new anti-pollution rules,
says better pollution control hardware on sport-utes will lead to cleaner air.
It will also mean a significantly higher price tag and could affect the
vehicles' designs, auto experts say. Radical changes in vehicle designs would be
needed because the heavier sport-utes tend to pollute more than smaller cars.
"The standards could cause prices of big sport-utility trucks to go up several
hundred dollars," said David Cole, director of the Office for the Study of
Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan.
And add in
higher gasoline prices caused by EPA proposals for
cleaner-burning fuel.
"Everyone is for clean air, but cut the
sulfur content of gasoline and fuel economy
slips several miles per gallon. And then the public blames automakers for lower
miles per gallon," said Jerry Cizek III, president of the Chicago Automobile
Trade Association.
The proposed EPA rules, which must be reviewed by the
White House, would be the first significant changes to the federal Clean Air Act
since 1990 and would be phased in over five years beginning in 2004.
"If
this holds up, it will be a quantum leap forward for clean air," said Frank
O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental watchdog
agency in Washington.
Auto analyst Ray Windecker, of Michigan's American
Autodatum, said the White House probably won't be sympathetic to pleas by
automakers and oil companies to back off.
The White House "knows the
public is dormant when such new laws are proposed," he said. "People only
complain later that federal regulations cause higher costs or
prevent them from buying vehicles they want."
Cole said, "This also is a
political issue. Older cars cause 80 percent of the pollution problem. You could
dramatically clean up the air by removing old, high-polluting cars from roads.
But . . . politicians are afraid to force (the owners) to give up their cars or
spend money to make them less polluting."
The EPA noted that sport-utes
and other light trucks increasingly have replaced cars -- sport-ute
and light truck sales accounted for 48 percent of all new car purchases last
year, compared with 43.7 percent in 1996 -- and such vehicles are not
required to meet the more-stringent emissions standards set for cars.
Cizek said automakers are working on "crossover" vehicles with the best
features of cars and trucks that will pollute less and get better fuel economy.
Many such vehicles are in concept form at the CATA-sponsored Chicago Auto Show,
which runs through Sunday at McCormick Place South.
Contributing:
Associated Press, Gannett News Service
GRAPHIC:
Sport-utes' designs could require costly changes to meet proposed pollution
rules. See also related story page 53.
LOAD-DATE:
February 19, 1999 
